by Bruce Schoenfeld (travelandleisure.com)
In the sleepy southeastern corner of Washington State, a quiet revolution is under way. Bruce Schoenfeld meets some of the passionate (even obsessed) vintners, chefs, and farmers who are making Walla Walla this country's next great wine destination.
I won't soon forget the first meal I ate in Walla Walla. It was six years ago, just as the local wine industry was beginning to boom. One of the area's leading viticulturists, a man of some sophistication, took me to what he pointedly called "the best restaurant in town." His quote marks hung in the air like smoke; before long, I understood why. The restaurant was a family steak house, on the model of a Sizzlerbut lacking the predictability of a chain. The room smelled like a school cafeteria, and the meat that arrived at our table tasted like something an office-supply store might sell.
Now I sit at a dining room table in Dayton, Washington, half an hour outside Walla Walla, reveling in the unmistakable, earthy scent of fresh truffles. Out here in the country where Lewis and Clark waited out a winter by eating horses, dogs, and fennel, chef Mike Davis of 26 Brix has prepared a lunch of home-cured prosciutto with grilled melon; corn soup with chunks of smoked trout; and a salad of arugula, toy box tomatoes, and those glorious black truffles. Still to come is free-range chicken roasted over the staves of French wine barrels. "I hate to use the cliché that this is the next Napa," says Davis, whose restaurant has been turning out the best food in the region since it opened last summer. "But I admit that I have thought to myself, 'I want to do for Walla Walla what
Thomas Keller did for Yountville.'" Full Story - America's latest vintage
Posted on March 01, 2005 01:03 |
Wineries
